The following letters were sent to The Royal Gazette following senior sports reporter Josh Ball's opinion column published in Wednesday's edition:

Dear Mr. Ball,

They earned the money when they qualified for the last World Cup. It gets no bigger than that. The government gave the money to help prepare for the World Cup effort and whatever else going forward.

What happened this time around has nothing to do with it. And as far as I am concerned, they did not do all that badly as some would have us believe.

They were competitive in all their matches. They were not blown out by anybody but at the end of the day this tournament was extremely competitive – just look at the results of the entire tournament. I don't know why some people expected us to beat teams with far more first class experience than us – including Afghanistan and the UAE. These teams have exposure that we could only hope for.

People like Gus Logie should be ashamed of themselves for the comments they have made which sounds like sour grapes. Before the tournament there was no comments about lack of pride or motivation but rather he felt confident. Unfortunately we were beaten by better teams, now he wants to complain. How bizarre!

Reggie Pearman should resign. Has his administration skills over the last four years elevated us to the next level? Yet he to wants to blame the players. How bizarre again.

Cricinfo writers such as Will Luke and Matt Williamson have a hidden agenda for their criticism. Have they been critical of Scotland for their failure? No! Ask yourself why.

Scotland won the tournament last time and now they finished sixth and out of the World Cup just like Bermuda, yet nothing. People need to sober up. We finished ninth and still within the High Performance money that ICC grants.

Our Under-19s made it to the junior World Cup. And for writers and others with no cricketing experience to come down on these men who represented our country is deplorable.

We took an amateur team to South Africa. I know they were recently contracted by the Cricket Board but really that was only within the last two or so months before the tournament in order for them to get time off from their real life day jobs. Writers and others have also said that none of our players apart from David Hemp did anything of note – excuse me. What about Steven Outerbridge, Rodney Trott and Fiqre Crockwell?

Listen, I wish all the sports were heavily funded. I wish the National Stadium was complete but I will not be over critical or have sour grapes because mine or other particular sports have not been funded like the cricket and football has.

We are a tiny country. What we are doing in sports is remarkable no matter what they say. When will we pull together as a country instead of all this foolish back-stabbing when results don't go our way? Look at it. Last tournament they said we benefited from being in the weaker group; now this time we were hurt by being in the stronger group. Look at the results. Namibia made it through to the Super Eight and they only won one game in group play just like Bermuda. Yet our failures our magnified.

Again all of these countries have far more first class cricket exposure than us. Namibia play in the South African first class league. Ireland, Scotland and Holland play In the English county system in overs games. Yet by some miracle we are suppose to beat all of them. What gives?

Also bear in mind that our players except Mr. Hemp are Bermudian-bred players. These other countries have immigrant teams. Look at Canada, UAE and Oman to name a few. We are a developing cricket nation which over time will yield better results.

Thank you for your time to allow me to vent my frustration at what has developed with the hope that some day before it's all said and done Bermuda will look back at this episode and laugh at what all the nay sayers were on about.

DAVID WILLIAMS

Dear Mr. Ball,

I couldn`t agree more with your opinion in today`s paper.

Well done, it's about time this was said.

HAROLD WHITECROSS